Fueling my Wanderlust

You would think that traveling through Europe would help tame my wanderlust but that's not the case. Traveling reminds me of all that I have yet to see.  

Sitting on the train from Venice to Bregenz I was listening to music, observing the changing landscape, and contemplating life.  The entire time I was reminded of taking road-trips in the US and suddenly that is all I wanted to do; road-trip all over the US, while I was on a train in Italy and Austria.  "What kind of person does that?" I thought to myself.  I just had an awesome weekend in Salzburg and Venice and all I can think about is traveling more.  Maybe it will get better as I travel more in Europe, I thought.  That is not the case thus far.

I have done a fair amount of traveling thus far in my life.  At the age of 21 I have been to 32 states.  I considered myself relatively cultured.  Last weekend we traveled to Vienna as a class and I realized how uncultured I really am.  There is so much history and culture in Vienna.  As I experienced in Mexico, there are building that were constructed before the United States was even a country.  With discussions in class I now realize how impressive it is that these buildings still exist after WWII.

The greatest feeling of being uncultured was when we went to The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.  That art museum is giant and the first rooms we went in to was full of craft work.  This was so much to take in but I enjoyed it immensely.  After that room we then continued to the rest of the museum.  That is where things got...interesting.  There is an entire floor of paintings.  That was also the fourth art museum we had been to in three days.  I enjoyed looking at everything but I just could not process everything that I was seeing.  There were so many works of art gathered under one roof and all I could think of was how much longer til we could leave.  I felt terrible for continually checking my watch but I still enjoyed the museum.  I also noted that when I go to The Louve when traveling to Paris, I need to wear tennis shoes.

So. Many. Paintings.

I also had an interesting cultural experience when attending my first opera while in Vienna.  The class went to a Verdi opera, Attila which is an Italian opera and had German subtitles.  Therefore I had very little idea as to what was going on.  We had watched some clips in class however this production had very modern staging.  All the music was the same but the costumes were far from traditional.  We have two more operas while we are here and I look forward to the different experiences that I will gain from them.

 Vienna is very metropolitan as we were told before we left but I didn't realize how much so.  The main shopping streets were very Chicago-esque however there was still so many historical buildings.  With my wanderlust I would rather travel than shop so as I walked around Vienna being a tourist instead of shopping.

Parliament Building

One of the many Hofsburg buildings 

With everything I have yet to do on this trip, I am looking forward to experience more different cultures.  Having the opportunity to experience different cultures reminds me to be humble as I am only one person in this giant world and only one piece of history.  I hope that throughout my life I remain humble and get more opportunities to remind me of that.